West European Politics

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fwep20

Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation in

Western Europe

Endre Borbáth, Swen Hutter & Arndt Leininger

To cite this article: Endre Borbáth, Swen Hutter & Arndt Leininger (2023) Cleavage politics,
polarisation and participation in Western Europe, West European Politics, 46:4, 631-651, DOI:
10.1080/01402382.2022.2161786

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2161786

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa

UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group

Published online: 19 Jan 2023.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 3253

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 2 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fwep20
West European Politics
2023, VOL. 46, NO. 4, 631–651
https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2161786

Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation

in Western Europe
Endre Borbátha , Swen Huttera and Arndt Leiningerb
a
Department of Political and Social Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin and WZB Berlin Social
Science Center, Berlin, Germany; bInstitute of Political Science, Chemnitz University of
Technology, Chemnitz, Germany

ABSTRACT
Polarisation over cultural issues and the emergence of radical, often populist,
challenger parties indicate a fundamental restructuring of political conflict in
Western Europe. The emerging divide crosscuts and, in part, reshapes older
cleavages. This special issue introduction highlights how the transformation
of cleavage structures relates to the dynamics of polarisation and political
participation. The contributions to the special issue innovate in two ways.
First, they adapt concepts and measures of ideological and affective polari-
sation to the context of Europe’s multi-party and multi-dimensional party
competition. Second, they emphasise electoral and protest politics, examining
how ideological and affective polarisation shape electoral and non-electoral
participation. Apart from introducing the contributions, the introduction com-
bines different datasets – the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, Comparative Study
of Electoral Systems and the European Social Survey – to sketch an empirical
picture of differentiated polarisation with types of polarisation only weakly
associated cross-arena, cross-nationally and over time.

KEYWORDS  Ideological polarisation; affective polarisation; political participation;

cleavages; protest

Polarisation over cultural issues and the emergence of radical, often pop-
ulist, challenger parties indicate a fundamental restructuring of political
conflict in Western Europe1 in a globalising world (Walter 2021). Scholars
adopting a structuralist perspective on political change may differ in their
explanatory frameworks and labels for the new structural conflict – from
‘integration–demarcation’ (Kriesi et al. 2008, 2012), ‘universalism–commu-
nitarianism’ (Bornschier 2010), ‘cosmopolitanism–communitarianism’ (de
Wilde et al. 2019), ‘cosmopolitanism–parochialism’ (De Vries 2018), ‘lib-
ertarian pluralist–authoritarian populist’ (Norris and Inglehart 2019) to the
‘transnational cleavage’ (Hooghe and Marks 2018). However, they agree

CONTACT Endre Borbáth endre.borbath@wzb.eu

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
632 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

that political conflict is in a state of flux and that the emerging societal
and political divides crosscut and, in part, reshape older cleavages (on the
latter, see Häusermann et al. 2022). In contrast to classical economic left–
right conflict, the new ‘cultural’ cleavage raises fundamental issues of rule
and belonging, and taps into various sources of conflicts about national
identity, sovereignty, and solidarity. Thus, the emerging controversies con-
cern questions related to the admission and integration of migrants, com-
peting supranational sources of authority, and international economic
competition. The contested issues related to the new cleavage – in partic-
ular, immigration (Grande et al. 2019; Green-Pedersen and Otjes 2019; van
der Brug et al. 2015) and European integration (e.g. De Vries 2018; de
Wilde et al. 2016; Hutter et al. 2016) – stand out because they are ever
more salient and particularly polarising in party competition.
The scholarly literature on the transformation of cleavage structures
in Europe provides the starting point of the special issue Under Pressure:
Polarisation and Participation in Western Europe. Research on cleavage
formation indicates that the restructuring of West European politics
involves significant changes in the substance of contemporary party
competition. However, as we argue, the articulation and mobilisation of
the new cleavage have changed the ‘landscapes of political contestation’
beyond the programmatic or ideological level.
Yet, contemporary cleavage research is often too narrowly focussed on
ideological changes in the electoral arena, zooming in on the substantive
(mis)fit between citizens’ preferences and parties’ supply. In contrast, it
tends to give short shrift to affective and identity-based processes of
group formation (but see: Bornschier et al. 2021; Zollinger 2022) and to
the dynamics in non-electoral politics (but see: Borbáth and Hutter 2021;
Hutter 2014; della Porta 2015). To address these limitations, the special
issue bridges the analysis of cleavage politics with current research on
political polarisation and participation. The three strands of research
highlight the interplay of ideological, affective and organisational changes
in West European politics. In combination, these changes put existing
political parties, institutions and procedures under pressure, challenging
the foundations of representative democracy (della Porta 2013).
First, ever since Sartori’s (1976) seminal work on party systems, polar-
isation has been a central topic in the literature on European elections
and party systems. However, most Europeanists, until recently, considered
distance mainly in an ideological sense – often along a single left–right
dimension. A burgeoning literature pioneered by research on the U.S.
(Iyengar et al. 2012) has begun to distinguish affective from ideological
polarisation. This strand of research challenges the view that polarisation
is primarily an elite-level phenomenon (Bischof and Wagner 2019; Fiorina
and Abrams 2008) and shows that partisan divisions on the demand side,
 West European Politics 633

i.e. among citizens, have an additional affective dimension in the European

context as well (Gidron et al. 2020; Reiljan 2020; Wagner 2021). Feelings
of group membership based on partisan identity elicit positive evaluations
towards people in the same group and negative evaluations towards other
groups. Amongst others, affective polarisation reduces citizens’ willingness
to consider different points of view (Hobolt et al. 2021), makes cross-group
cooperation more difficult (Iyengar and Westwood 2015), and shapes cit-
izens’ policy positions (Druckman et al. 2021). Ultimately, we argue that
cleavage theory implies a close link between ideological and affective
polarisation along the main contested ‘cleavage issues’.
Second, the emerging cleavages are not only reconfiguring party systems
and electoral behaviour. They also shape mobilisation and participation in
non-electoral politics (e.g. Giugni and Grasso 2019; Hutter 2014). On the
individual level, different forms of participation – already distinguished in
the seminal work of Barnes and Kaase (1979) – do not follow the same
trends. While electoral turnout is in decline (Mair 2013), forms of
‘non-electoral’ or ‘non-institutionalised’ participation are increasingly wide-
spread, and albeit with generational differences, an integral part of citizens’
action repertoire (Borbáth and Hutter 2022; Dalton 2008; Oser 2017).
Moreover, recent social movement scholarship points to ever closer and
consequential cross-arena interactions between electoral and protest politics.
Again, research on the U.S. offers ample evidence on the impact of
protest-induced polarisation on compromise-seeking and defection by mod-
erate voters (e.g. Gillion 2020; McAdam and Kloos 2014; Tarrow 2021).
Similarly, Europeanists have shown how so-called ‘movement parties’ from
left (e.g. della Porta et al. 2017) and right (e.g. Caiani and Císař 2018;
Castelli Gattinara and Pirro 2019) act as transmission belts between street
protests and elections, and how protestors’ demands intensify party com-
petition (e.g. Bremer et al. 2020; Císař and Vráblíková 2019; Walgrave and
Vliegenthart 2019). In line with cleavage theory, we thus see a transforma-
tion of the landscapes of political contestation far beyond the electoral arena.
Building on these insights, the special issue Under Pressure: Polarisation
and Participation in Western Europe innovates in two ways. First, inspired
by cleavage research, the special issue offers novel measurement strategies
and findings for both ideological and affective polarisation, adapting
U.S.-based indicators to Europe’s multi-dimensional and multi-party con-
text. Second, it advances our understanding of how ideological and
affective polarisation drives citizens’ participation in electoral and
non-electoral politics. Overall, the special issue demonstrates that we can
only grasp the far-reaching restructuring of contemporary West European
politics when considering polarisation ‘as rooted in affect and identity’
(Iyengar et al. 2019: 131) and when studying contestation across politi-
cal arenas.
634 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

The introduction is structured in four sections. First, we sketch our

dynamic and actor-centred approach to cleavage formation. Second, we
link this approach with ideological and affective polarisation research and
empirically illustrate the aggregate relationships between different types of
polarisation. The third section shifts to the question of how polarisation
affects participation, where we, again, empirically illustrate the dynamics
at play. We conclude by providing a summary of our main arguments and
introducing the individual contributions to the special issue.

Cleavage theory meets ideological and affective polarisation

Scholars in the Rokkanean tradition (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Rokkan
2000) use the term ‘cleavages’ to label particularly salient and sticky
patterns of opposition (for reviews, see Bornschier 2010; Deegan-Krause
2007). Following Bartolini and Mair’s (1990: 213ff.) influential definition,
a fully developed cleavage includes an empirical, a normative, and an
institutional element – i.e. a distinct social-structural basis, specific values
and beliefs (a political consciousness), and their political organisation
and mobilisation.2 Individualisation, cognitive mobilisation, and the gen-
eral complexity of contemporary societies make it less likely to observe
cleavages of a similar nature as the historical examples of Stein Rokkan.
However, current scholarly work shows the lasting appeal of a Rokkanean
framework, as taking such a perspective comes with at least two distinct
advantages. On the one hand, it allows a holistic view by linking changes
in contemporary conflict structures to long-term societal transformations
and short-term shocks such as crises or catastrophes. On the other hand,
it allows linking different levels of analysis, highlighting how political
action at the micro-level lies at the intersection of meso-level mobilisation
and macro-level opportunities and constraints (Kriesi 2008).
Yet, recent work in the Rokkanean tradition indicates that one should
adopt a more dynamic and actor-centred perspective on cleavage forma-
tion (Enyedi 2005). Such perspective takes the role of contemporary
political conflict for the perpetuation and transformation of cleavages
more seriously than classic cleavage theory. Illustrative examples for this
approach are the writings by Bornschier (2010), Kriesi et al. (2008, 2012)
and Hooghe and Marks (2018). Following a structuralist logic, these
authors start from the idea that political parties and other political
intermediaries are constrained to operate within a given competitive
space. New issues and changes in the dimensions of party competition
emerge exogenously, i.e. from social conflicts, which are products of
long-term social change and exacerbate during crises. At the same time,
they consider the agency of political actors in structuring new divides.
A fundamental assumption is that to keep a cleavage alive or reinforce
 West European Politics 635

Figure 1. A simple model of cleavage formation and perpetuation.

Source: Bornschier (2010: 62), with modifications by the authors.

the relevance of a new social divide, the core issues linked to it need
to give rise to publicly visible conflicts and activate citizens.
Figure 1 illustrates the recursive process of cleavage formation and per-
petuation. The simple figure underscores the demand-driven nature of any
cleavage model while emphasising the importance of the ideological content
in party competition – and related political arenas. It assumes that conflict
over specific issues activates people’s ideological schemata and ‘reinforces
the established interpretation of what politics is about in the specific country’
(Bornschier 2010: 62). Manifest conflicts render group attachments salient
and allow individuals to locate themselves in the political spaces. This is
also where ideological polarisation – defined as ideological or programmatic
distance – enters the picture of cleavage theory. That is, we should observe
publicly visible and structured patterns of opposition along core issues linked
to a cleavage, otherwise it will fade in the medium to long term.
It is well documented that mainstream parties from left and right
have been ill prepared to respond to the emerging new ideological polar-
isation because it crosscuts their traditional electoral coalitions (e.g. de
Vries and Hobolt 2020; Häusermann and Kriesi 2015; Hooghe and Marks
2018). In turn, new political entrepreneurs – especially from the populist
radical right – have successfully seised this opportunity by mobilising
issues of order and belonging, and tapping into conflicts about national
identity, sovereignty, and solidarity. Across Western Europe, the ‘twin
issues’ related to the emergence of the new ‘cultural’ cleavage have been
immigration (e.g. Grande et al. 2019; Green-Pedersen and Otjes 2019;
van der Brug et al. 2015) and European integration (e.g. De Vries 2018;
de Wilde et al. 2016; Hutter et al. 2016). Polarisation related to both
issues has increased during Europe’s latest phase of multiple crises
636 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

(Hooghe and Marks 2018; Hutter and Kriesi 2019), and their salience is
highly predictive of the strength of populist radical right parties (e.g.
Dennison and Geddes 2019).
As Dassonneville and Çakır (2021) note in their recent review, most
empirical research on ideological polarisation, however, still assesses the
phenomenon on a single left–right dimension.3 Yet, an emerging strand
of scholarly work incorporates insights from cleavage research by con-
sidering the role of a second ‘cultural’ dimension in this context (e.g.
Dassonneville and Çakır 2021; McCoy et al. 2018; Roberts 2022).
Dassonneville and Çakır (2021) themselves observe, based on the com-
parative manifesto data, persistent socio-economic polarisation alongside
a cross-national trend towards increasing polarisation over social and
postmaterialist issues. At the same time, they do not find a uniform
trend towards polarisation over national identity and immigration issues.
As the authors document substantial heterogeneity across countries and
elections, they argue that the extent to which the rise of the new cleavage
brings about ideological polarisation depends on the salience of the
cultural dimension. In this regard, Dassonneville and Çakır distinguish
two scenarios, one in which the new cleavage exists alongside the old
socio-economic division and one in which the new cleavage replaces the
old socio-economic divide as the central dimension of conflict.
Echoing the replacement scenario, McCoy et al. (2018: 18) suggest defin-
ing polarisation as a process where the ‘multiplicity of differences in a
society increasingly align along a single dimension, crosscutting differences
become instead reinforcing, and people increasingly perceive and describe
politics and society in terms of “Us” versus “Them”’. Based on illustrative
cases studies for Hungary, the U.S., Turkey, and Venezuela, the authors
show how such a relational and political understanding of polarisation
helps to conceive processes of democratic erosion. As Roberts (2022) aptly
shows in another recent contribution on the link between populism and
polarisation, such a reconfiguration depends heavily on actors’ strategies
and their ability to navigate in the new multi-dimensional political space.
Thus, distinguishing ideological polarisation over the two dimensions pro-
vides analytical and empirical leverage even in contexts where they align
along a single axis of competition.
Contemporary research in the Rokkanean tradition has been key in
advancing the understanding that ideological polarisation should be stud-
ied along multiple dimensions and what kind of social-structural features
drive support for the opposing ideological positions. However, it tends
to neglect the distinctive collective identities that are emerging (but see:
Bornschier et al. 2021; Zollinger 2022). This limitation is remarkable
given the historical references and the theoretical emphasis on what
Bartolini and Mair (1990: 224) have called the ‘degree of closure’ of a
 West European Politics 637

cleavage – closure referring to clearly separated and highly integrated

social groups ‘through marriage, educational institutions, the urban and
spatial setting of the population, social customs, religious practices and
so on’. Relatedly, studies on consociational democracy have dealt exten-
sively with the challenges of ‘social closure’ and ‘pillarisation’ associated
with cleavage politics. In this line of scholarly work, experiences in
Western Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries have provided critical
examples of institutional mechanisms that successfully integrate conflict
and provide possible governance models for ethnically, religiously, or
economically divided societies (e.g. Lijphart 2002).
We consider the U.S.-focussed literature on affective polarisation – typically
referring to partisan animosity (Iyengar et al. 2019) – a good starting point
to revive the study of the social-identitarian dimension of cleavage politics
(cf. Helbing and Jungkurz 2020). First, this line of research puts notions of
in- and out-group evaluations at the centre stage. Second, it emphasises affect
and emotions, i.e. positive feelings for the in-group and negative feelings for
the out-group. Third, it focuses on the attitudinal and behavioural conse-
quences of affective distances, considering the spill-over to everyday life and
social encounters. Ultimately, high affective polarisation makes cleavage
boundaries less permeable. It reduces citizens’ willingness to consider other
points of view (Hobolt et al. 2021) and makes cross-group cooperation more
difficult (Iyengar and Westwood 2015). Thus, we argue that a fully-fledged
cleavage implies a close link between ideological and affective polarisation,
shaping behaviour far beyond Election Day.
Research on the U.S. (e.g. Iyengar et al. 2012) and Europe (e.g. Gidron
et al. 2020; Reiljan 2020; Wagner 2021) highlights that current political
conflicts cannot be reduced to ideological elements only. Distinguishing
affective from ideological polarisation renders it an open empirical ques-
tion to what extent the emerging ideological distances linked to new
cleavage issues are (already) related to mobilised group identities
(Druckman et al. 2021; Harteveld 2021a, 2021b). From this perspective,
affective polarisation does not necessarily ‘move together’ with ideological
polarisation. Affective polarisation might result from ‘top-down’ processes
of collective identity formation, unencumbered by socio-demographic
anchors, or be based on socio-demographic distinctions that are not
programmatically mobilised, e.g. certain ethnic divides (Reiljan 2020).
As a simple first cut at this question, we calculated the correlations
between aggregate ideological and affective polarisation levels across
eleven West European countries. Regarding ideological polarisation, we
rely on Dalton’s (2008) measure and calculated economic left–right and
the cultural GAL–TAN polarisation for eleven West European party
systems based on the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) (Jolly et al.
2022).4 We matched those measures to the nearest year in Wagner’s
638 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

(2021) data for affective polarisation among citizens. Overall, we find

no relationship between these aggregate measures: The correlation coef-
ficients are 0.06 for the link between economic left–right polarisation
and affective polarisation and −0.02 for the link between GAL–TAN
polarisation and affective polarisation. Our results mirror research on
the U.S., which clearly indicates growing affective polarisation but finds
less clear-cut evidence for ideological polarisation (e.g. Iyengar et al. 2019;
Mason 2015). They are also in line with individual-level evidence for
Europe by Wagner (2021), showing a positive, yet weak association of
affective polarisation and perceived ideological polarisation.
One could conclude that the weak empirical associations between ideo-
logical polarisation in party competition and affective polarisation among
citizens renders the latter useless for studying cleavage politics in Western
Europe. As Mason (2015: 142) argues for the U.S. case, the mismatch may
signal the power of partisan identities and ‘a nation of people driven pow-
erfully by team spirit, but less powerfully by logically connections of issues
to action’. However, interpreted from a cleavage perspective, it may also signal
that in the European context the emerging collective identities and related
in-/out-group dynamics are less structured by political parties as
identity-markers but by other politicised social identities. As Bornschier et al.
(2021: 2113) show in their ground-breaking study on the Swiss case, the new
cultural divide has the ‘potential to structure how people think about who
they are and where they stand in an emerging group conflict’. The most
politicised identities are structurally rooted, yet they are culturally connoted
such as cosmopolitanism, Swiss or ‘being culturally interested’ (see also
Zollinger 2022). Relatedly, Hobolt et al. (2021) show how opinion-based
identities – in their case Brexit-related identities of ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’
– can also in the short-run lead to new politicised identities, crosscutting
partisan identities. As the authors argue, not every issue can trigger compar-
atively strong polarisation. Put differently, it seems no coincidence that Brexit
involves heightened conflicts over both issues – European integration and
immigration – singled out as key for the emerging new cleavage (see above).
To sum up, we argue that Europeanist should not too quickly consider
the concept of affective polarisation pointless when studying emerging
cleavage structures. However, as for ideological polarisation, the concept
and its measurement need adaption to Europe’s multi-party systems and
the emerging collective identities on both sides of the new cleavage.

From polarisation to participation in electoral and non-

electoral politics
Next to adapting concepts of polarisation to a multi-party and
multi-dimensional context, the articles in the special issue Under Pressure:
 West European Politics 639

Polarisation and Participation in Western Europe push the agenda of

cleavage research beyond a narrow focus on vote choice. Specifically,
they examine how ideological and affective polarisation influences people’s
decision to participate in politics. Although the theoretical linkages
between polarisation and participation seem relatively straightforward,
empirical evidence on the matter is mixed (e.g. Bischof and Wagner
2019; Houle and Kenny 2018; Huber and Ruth 2017; Leininger and
Meijers 2021; Spittler 2018). The prevailing view on the link between
ideological polarisation (which most of the literature focuses on) and
participation has been positive because programmatic differentiation
between parties should make elections more ‘meaningful’ to citizens (see,
for instance, Wessels and Schmitt 2008). Indeed, while results are less
clear for the U.S. (Fiorina et al. 2008; Hetherington 2008), there is now
robust evidence that ideological polarisation increases turnout in
multi-party systems (Abramowitz and Saunders 2008; Béjar et al. 2020;
Hobolt and Hoerner 2020; Moral 2017; Steiner and Martin 2012; Wilford
2017). Evidence comes from a variety of geographical contexts, from
Asia (Wang and Shen 2018), Europe (Moral 2017) and Latin America
(Béjar et al. 2020). Also, proximity voting (Lachat 2011; Singer 2016)
and correct voting (Pierce and Lau 2019) seem to be strengthened by
ideological polarisation. However, as ideological polarisation also inten-
sifies party attachments (Lupu 2016), whether these results reflect better
informed or simply more partisan vote choices is unclear.
Scholars’ views of the link between affective polarisation and partic-
ipation are decidedly less favourable compared to ideological polarisation.
Here, negative interpretations dominate as affective polarisation is seen
as reducing citizens’ willingness to consider other points of view (Hobolt
et al. 2021) and making cross-group cooperation more difficult (Iyengar
and Westwood 2015). However, affective polarisation may still be ‘a
blessing in disguise’, as Harteveld and Wagner in this special issue put
it, in that these dynamics can lead to popular mobilisation. The greater
the dislike of other parties, the more is perceived to be at stake in the
political contest and the more critical it becomes to vote not just to
support the in-party but to keep the out-party, the political opponent,
away from political office.
In that regard, it is interesting to notice that the well-documented,
long-term decline in turnout (Gray and Caul 2000; Hooghe and Kern
2017; Leininger 2015) seems to have halted or even reversed in some
countries, as Figure 2 illustrates for 10 West European countries. We
also plot in Figure 2 the temporal development of affective polarisation,
again drawing on Wagner’s (2021) measure and data. While the figure
shows that the geographic and temporal coverage of aggregate affective
polarisation is still limited, the initial stock-taking of the available
640 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

Figure 2. Trends in electoral turnout and affective polarisation.

Note: We rely on ParlGov to measure electoral turnout in national parliamentary
elections.

evidence is nevertheless informative. For instance, Germany displays a

conspicuous parallel movement of turnout and affective polarisation. The
rise in turnout and affective polarisation from 2009 to 2013 coincides
with the populist right Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) appearance on
the German political scene. Similar suggestive patterns appear, among
others, in Spain and United Kingdom. However, there are cases where
affective polarisation and turnout seem to be trending in opposite direc-
tions, such as in France, or not correlated, such as in Finland.
As emphasised in the introductory section, the new cleavages are not
only reconfiguring party systems and electoral behaviour, but have also
left their marks on mobilisation and participation beyond Election Day
(e.g. Giugni and Grasso 2019; Hutter 2014). To emphasise this point,
Kriesi et al. (2012) have introduced the concept of ‘cleavage coalitions’,
referring to the diverse constellation of actors that articulate and mobilise
conflicts not only in the electoral but also in the protest and civil society
arenas. Such cross-arena mobilisation might originate from a coalition
between different types of organisations or from direct mobilisation by
political parties on the streets (Borbáth and Hutter 2021). Hutter and
 West European Politics 641

Kriesi (2013) argue that it is in crucial moments of cleavage transfor-

mation that mobilisation in the two arenas strongly reinforces each other
(see also Borbáth and Hutter 2022). The initially cited literature from
the U.S. (e.g. Gillion 2020; McAdam and Kloos 2014; Tarrow 2021) and
Europe (e.g. Bremer et al. 2020; Caiani and Císař 2018; Castelli Gattinara
and Pirro 2019; Císař and Vráblíková 2019; della Porta et al. 2017) offers
ample evidence on the close and consequential interplay of protest and
electoral politics.
From such a perspective, as the new cleavage becomes fully mobilised,
we might also expect an ever-closer relationship between polarisation in
the electoral arena and protest participation. We empirically illustrate the
idea by comparing developments in demonstration turnout with trends in
ideological polarisation. To do so, Figure 3 shows aggregate trends from
the European Social Survey (ESS) based on whether respondents have
taken part in a lawful public demonstration in the last 12 months.5 As
Figure 3 shows, while participation in demonstrations develops in waves,
ideological polarisation among parties follows a more organic development
with punctuated moments of change that alter its long-term trend. Focussing

Figure 3. Trends in demonstration turnout and ideological polarisation.

Note: In order to calculate the level of demonstration turnout, the responses in the
ESS are weighted by the post stratification weight. The index of polarisation ranges
from 0 to 10.
642 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

on polarisation on the cultural dimension, the case of Sweden is illustrative:

Between 2010 and 2014, after the populist radical right Sweden Democrats
entered parliament, cultural polarisation dramatically increased, and this
development went hand in hand with an increase in participation in
demonstrations. We can also observe different patterns, with Germany as
an illustrative example where we observe increasing polarisation on the
cultural dimension after the AfD’s entrance to parliament in 2017. However,
that trend started earlier, and it did not come with a significant rise in
demonstration turnout. In some cases (most notably in France and
Portugal), the development of demonstration turnout is also more closely
related to polarisation on the economic dimension. Overall, these aggregate
associations do not speak for a direct translation of increasing polarisation
to increasing levels of participation. Yet, they point to interesting avenues
for research, explaining under what conditions polarisation relates to the
dynamics of protest and other forms of participation. These questions are
addressed in the second part of this special issue.

Introducing the individual contributions

This introduction argues for bridging studies on cleavage politics with
polarisation and political participation research. Taken together, the three
strands of research help us to understand better the interplay of ideo-
logical, affective and organisational transformations in West European
politics. We have set out to make two key contributions connecting the
articles in the special issue. First, we have linked current cleavage research
to studies of ideological and affective polarisation, both from a conceptual
as well as from a methodological perspective. Second, we have zoomed
in on the role ideological and affective polarisation play in shaping cit-
izens’ engagement in electoral and non-electoral forms of participation.
Regarding our first ambition, we have theoretically examined and empir-
ically illustrated how the rise in the salience of crosscutting cleavage issues
transformed party competition in the region. We argue that, Western
European parties compete in a two-dimensional political space. We have
also contributed to the cleavage literature by arguing that non-ideological,
affective dynamics should be accounted for not only as an add-on to ideo-
logical polarisation but as a phenomenon in its own right. In this regard,
our descriptive results are instructive as they show that aggregate levels of
ideological and affective polarisation do not systematically relate to each
other. The contributions to the special issue highlight the consequences of
a restructured political space for researching polarisation in contemporary
West European democracies and beyond. The individual articles offer inno-
vations in terms of novel measurement strategies and insights regarding
group-based ideological divisions (Traber et al. 2022), the effects of consistent
 West European Politics 643

party positions in a two-dimensional space (Dassonneville et al. 2022), and

affective divides related to European integration (Hahm et al. 2022).
In their contribution Group-based Public Opinion Polarisation in
Multi-Party Systems, Traber et al. (2022) propose a refined measure of
ideological polarisation and apply it to survey data from Switzerland.
Following the cleavage perspective, the authors argue that scholars should
put conflicts between groups in society centre stage. Methodologically, the
authors innovate by combining hierarchical item response models with a
distance measure based on probability distributions. This allows the exam-
ination of the overlap of ideology distributions between groups and the
development of group-based polarisation over time. For cleavage research,
it is important that the proposed measure allows differentiating across and
within-group polarisation, thus showing whether the restructuring of party
competition and the rise of challenger parties go along with ever more
ideologically distant and internally cohesive groups.
In Partisan Attachments in a Multidimensional Space, Dassonneville
et al. (2022) provide new evidence about how the restructuring of party
competition affects party identification. The authors argue that scholars
should move beyond a one-dimensional understanding of ideological
polarisation when studying the European context. Dassonneville et al.
demonstrate that what matters for mass partisanship are both distances
between the political parties on each dimension and their overall location
in the political space. Combining European Social Survey and Chapel
Hill Expert data, they show that the more political parties position
themselves along a new economic-cultural diagonal, the higher the share
of citizens in the electorate identifying with these parties.
Concluding this first set of articles, Hahm et al. (2022) examine affec-
tive polarisation over European integration. In their article Divided by
Europe: Affective Polarisation in European Parliament Elections, the authors
zoom in on how affective divides relate to one of the key new ‘cleavage
issues’. To investigate the multidimensional structure of political conflict,
the authors combine a conjoint experiment with decision-making games
from behavioural economics, fielded in 25 EU member states. Hahm
et al. demonstrate that the divide over European identities feeds on
out-group animosity rather than in-group favouritism – a result that
underscores its potential for polarisation.
Regarding our second ambition, we have argued that the effect of
supply-side transformations alters patterns of participation in and beyond
the electoral arena. As our literature review and descriptive analyses
indicate, polarisation does not always lead to higher participation in
elections and protests. Still, in key transformative moments, the two
follow each other more closely. In this regard, increasing polarisation
can turn around the long-term decline of electoral participation and
644 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

reinvigorate participation in general. The contributions to the special

issue highlight the positive effect of affective polarisation on electoral
turnout (Harteveld and Wagner 2022) and how the rise and success of
populist parties may not necessarily lead to higher participation but can
spur political interest (Nemčok et al. 2022). The contributions also provide
novel insights into how the heterogeneity of social media platforms is
reshaping citizens’ participation repertoire (Theocharis et al. 2022) and
the links between ideological polarisation and citizens’ willingness to
protest during the Covid-19 pandemic (Hunger et al. 2023).
In their contribution Does Affective Polarisation Increase Turnout? Harteveld
and Wagner (2022) assemble an impressive array of longitudinal datasets –
from Germany, Spain and the Netherlands – to demonstrate a robust positive
effect of affective polarisation on participation in elections. Using
individual-level data allows them to investigate who is mobilised by affective
polarisation. The polarisation effect appears to be strongest for those less
interested in politics. Importantly, their use of longitudinal data also allows
them to ascertain that polarisation precedes the decision to turn out to vote.
The article Softening the Corrective Effect of Populism, by Nemčok et al.
(2022) argue that the impact of populist parties, as key mobilising agents
of non-mainstream positions, does not result in higher participation rates
immediately, which explains mixed empirical evidence found in previous
research. Therefore, they propose taking a step back in the chain of
causality and examining the effect of polarisation on political interest.
Nemčok et al. find, based on cross-national data of 97 national elections,
that the mere presence of at least one populist party, their number and
their electoral success are all positively correlated with individual political
interest. Importantly, this relationship is stronger for less-educated citizens.
A limitation of the scholarly literature on participation and polarisation
is the insufficient attention to how the heterogeneity of social media plat-
forms alters the structure of participation modes. In Platform Affordances
and Political Participation, Theocharis et al. (2022) distinguish between
digitally-supported versus digitally-enabled acts and stress the importance
of platform affordances to further differentiate among the latter. Based on
original survey data for France, the U.S. and the U.K., Theocharis et al.
find support for the argument that social media-enabled forms of partic-
ipation are independent of traditional modes of participation and do not
consist of a uniform block. The one-sided ‘following decisions’ on Twitter
result in different dynamics than the two-sided decisions on Facebook
where both parties need to agree to follow each other.
In the final contribution The Mobilisation Potential of Anti-containment
Protests in Germany, Hunger et al. (2023) focus on protest and ideological
polarisation triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. While most European
citizens supported the governments’ containment measures, others took
 West European Politics 645

to the streets and voiced dissatisfaction. Analysing Germany, where

large-scale demonstrations took place, the authors examine understanding
for and willingness to participate in demonstrations against the state’s
containment measures. Based on 16 waves of a cross-sectional survey,
Hunger et al. show that every fifth respondent understands the protesters,
and around 60 percent of those are ready to participate. Political distrust,
far-right orientations, and an emerging ‘freedom divide’ structure the
potential. Moreover, the findings indicate a radicalisation process and
show how ideology and threat perceptions drive the step from under-
standing to a willingness to participate.
In times of multiple crises, in which politics often responds to
short-term pressures of recessions, pandemics or even war, we highlight
the role of long-term structural processes. We argue that the transforma-
tion of cleavage structures underpins ideological and affective polarisation
dynamics, shaping in turn patterns of mobilisation and participation far
beyond Election Day. In this regard, the contributions to this special issue,
we hope, provide crucial insights for a more extensive research agenda
that combines cleavage politics with polarisation and participation research
to grasp better the ongoing transformations in Europe’s democracies.

Notes
1. The contributions to the special issue mainly but not exclusively cover
Western Europe.
2. In that sense, cleavages cannot be reduced either to social divides (‘social
cleavages’) or purely political struggles (‘political cleavages’). As Bartolini
(2005) aptly stated in a later publication, the concept of ‘cleavages’ does
not come with adjectives attached.
3. Dalton (2021), for instance, finds that polarisation along a left-right di-
mension is primarily predicted by cross-national characteristics of the
electoral and party system. While he also tests the role of more dynamic
factors, some associated with the second conflict dimension, these play a
limited role in explaining changes in general left-right polarisation.
4. These are Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the Western European
countries for which both the ideological and the affective polarisation
measure is available for at least two time points.
5. For polarisation, we rely again on the economic left-right and cultural
GAL-TAN positions of political parties from CHES and the measure pro-
posed by Dalton (2008: 906).

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all contributors to the special issue, participants of the
‘Under pressure: Electoral and non-electoral participation in polarizing times’
workshop, the anonymous reviewers, Wolfgang C. Müller and Raphaël Létourneau.
646 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

Endre Borbáth and Swen Hutter would also like to acknowledge financial support
from the Volkswagen Foundation.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors
Endre Borbáth is a postdoctoral researcher at the Freie Universität Berlin and
at the Centre for Civil Society Research, a joint initiative of Freie Universität
and the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre. [endre.borbath@wzb.eu]
Swen Hutter is Lichtenberg-Professor of Political Sociology at Freie Universität
Berlin and Vice Director of the Centre for Civil Society Research, a joint ini-
tiative of Freie Universität and the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre. [swen.
hutter@wzb.eu]
Arnd Leininger is an Assistant Professor for Political Science Research Methods
at the Chemnitz University of Technology. [arndt.leininger@phil.tu-chemnitz.de]

ORCID
Endre Borbáth http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2980-8586
Swen Hutter http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1107-1213
Arndt Leininger http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2491-9057

References
Abramowitz, Alan I., and Kyle L. Saunders (2008). ‘Is Polarization a Myth?’, The
Journal of Politics, 70:2, 542–55.
Barnes, Samuel H., and Max Kaase (1979). Political Action: Mass Participation
in Five Western Democracies. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
Bartolini, Stefano (2005). Restructuring Europe: Centre Formation, System Building,
and Political Structuring between the Nation State and the European Union.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bartolini, Stefano, and Peter Mair (1990). Identity, Competition, and Electoral
Availability: The Stabilisation of European Electorates 1885–1985. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Béjar, Sergio, Juan A. Moraes, and Santiago López-Cariboni (2020). ‘Elite
Polarization and Voting Turnout in Latin America, 1993–2010’, Journal of
Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 30:1, 1–21.
Bischof, Daniel, and Markus Wagner (2019). ‘Do Voters Polarize When Radical
Parties Enter Parliament?’, American Journal of Political Science, 63:4, 888–904.
Borbáth, Endre, and Swen Hutter (2021). ‘Protesting Parties in Europe: A
Comparative Analysis’, Party Politics, 27:5, 896–908.
Borbáth, Endre, and Swen Hutter (2022). ‘Bridging Electoral and Nonelectoral
Political Participation’, in Maria T. Grasso and Marco Giugni (eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of Political Participation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 451–70.
 West European Politics 647

Bornschier, Simon (2010). Cleavage Politics and the Populist Eight: The New
Cultural Conflict in Western Europe. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Bornschier, Simon, Silja Häusermann, Delia Zollinger, and Céline Colombo (2021).
‘How “Us” and “Them” Relates to Voting Behavior – Social Structure, Social
Identities, and Electoral Choice’, Comparative Political Studies, 54:12, 2087–122.
Bremer, Björn, Swen Hutter, and Hanspeter Kriesi (2020). ‘Dynamics of Protest
and Electoral Politics in the Great Recession’, European Journal of Political
Research, 59:4, 842–66.
Caiani, Manuela, and Ondřej Císař (2018). Radical Right Movement Parties in
Europe. London: Routledge.
Castelli Gattinara, Pietro, and Andrea L. P. Pirro (2019). ‘The Far Right as Social
Movement’, European Societies, 21:4, 447–62.
Císař, Ondřej, and Kateřina Vráblíková (2019). ‘National Protest Agenda and the
Dimensionality of Party Politics: Evidence from Four East-Central European
Democracies’, European Journal of Political Research, 58:4, 1152–71.
Dalton, Russell J. (2008). ‘Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political
Participation’, Political Studies, 56:1, 76–98.
Dalton, Russell J. (2021). ‘Modeling Ideological Polarization in Democratic Party
Systems’, Electoral Studies, 72, 102346.
Dassonneville, Ruth, and Semih Çakır (2021). ‘Party System Polarization and
Electoral Behavior’, in William R. Thompson (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia
of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acre-
fore/9780190228637.013.1979.
Dassonneville, Ruth, Patrick Fournier, and Zeynep Somer-Topcu (2022).
‘Partisan Attachments in a Multi-Dimensional Space’, West European Politics,
1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2087387.
De Vries, Catherine E. (2018). Euroscepticism and the Future of European
Integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Vries, Catherine E., and Sara B. Hobolt (2020). Political Entrepreneurs: The
Rise of Challenger Parties in Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
de Wilde, Pieter, Ruud Koopmans, Wolfgang Merkel, Oliver Strijbis, and Michael
Zürn, eds. (2019). The Struggle Over Borders: Cosmopolitanism and
Communitarianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
de Wilde, Pieter, Anna Leupold, and Henning Schmidtke (2016). ‘Introduction:
The Differentiated Politicisation of European Governance’, West European
Politics, 39:1, 3–22.
Deegan-Krause, Kevin (2007). ‘New Dimensions of Political Cleavage’, in Russell
J. Dalton and Hans-Dieter Klingemann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political
Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 538–56.
della Porta, Donatella (2013). Can Democracy Be Saved?: Participation, Deliberation
and Social Movements. Cambridge: Polity Press.
della Porta, Donatella (2015). Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing
Capitalism Back into Protest Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
della Porta, Donatella, Joseba Fernández, Hara Kouki, and Lorenzo Mosca (2017).
Movement Parties Against Austerity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Dennison, James, and Andrew Geddes (2019). ‘A Rising Tide? The Salience of
Immigration and the Rise of Anti-Immigration Political Parties in Western
Europe’, The Political Quarterly, 90:1, 107–16.
Druckman, James. N., Samara Klar, Yanna Krupnikov, Matthew Levendusky, and
John Barry Ryan (2021). ‘Affective Polarization, Local Contexts and Public
Opinion in America’, Nature Human Behaviour, 5:1, 28–38.
648 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

Enyedi, Zsolt (2005). ‘The Role of Agency in Cleavage Formation’, European

Journal of Political Research, 44:5, 697–720.
Fiorina, Morris P., and Samuel J. Abrams (2008). ‘Political Polarization in the
American Public’, Annual Review of Political Science, 11:1, 563–88.
Fiorina, Morris P., Samuel A. Abrams, and Jeremy C. Pope (2008). ‘Polarization
in the American Public: Misconceptions and Misreadings’, The Journal of
Politics, 70:2, 556–60.
Gidron, Noam, James Adams, and Will Horne (2020). American Affective
Polarization in Comparative Perspective (Elements in American Politics).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gillion, Daniel Q. (2020). The Loud Minority: Why Protests Matter in American
Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Giugni, Marco, and Maria T. Grasso (2019). Street Citizens: Protest Politics and
Social Movement Activism in the Age of Globalization. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Grande, Edgar, Tobias Schwarzbözl, and Matthias Fatke (2019). ‘Politicizing Immigration
in Western Europe’, Journal of European Public Policy, 26:10, 1444–63.
Gray, Mark, and Miki Caul (2000). ‘Declining Voter Turnout in Advanced
Industrial Democracies, 1950 to 1997: The Effects of Declining Group
Mobilization’, Comparative Political Studies, 33:9, 1091–122.
Green-Pedersen, Christoffer, and Simon Otjes (2019). ‘A Hot Topic? Immigration
on the Agenda in Western Europe’, Party Politics, 25:3, 424–34.
Hahm, Hyeonho, David Hilpert, and Thomas König (2022). ‘Divided by Europe:
Affective Polarization in the Context of European Elections’, West European
Politics, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2133277
Harteveld, Eelco (2021a). ‘Ticking All the Boxes? A Comparative Study of Social
Sorting and Affective Polarization’, Electoral Studies, 72, 102337.
Harteveld, Eelco (2021b). ‘Fragmented Foes: Affective Polarization in the
Multiparty Context of The Netherlands’, Electoral Studies, 71, 102332.
Harteveld, Eelco, and Markus Wagner (2022). ‘Does Affective Polarisation Increase
Turnout? Evidence from Germany, The Netherlands and Spain’, West European
Politics, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2087395.
Häusermann, Silja, and Hanspeter Kriesi (2015). ‘What Do Voters Want?
Dimensions and Configurations in Individual-Level Preferences and Party
Choice’, in Pablo Beramendi, Silja Häusermann, Herbert Kitschelt, and
Hanspeter Kriesi (eds.), The Politics of Advanced Capitalism. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 202–30.
Häusermann, Silja, Michael Pinggera, Macarena Ares, and Matthias Enggist
(2022). ‘Class and Social Policy in the Knowledge Economy’, European Journal
of Political Research, 61:2, 462–84.
Helbling, Marc, and Sebastian Jungkunz (2020). ‘Social Divides in the Age of
Globalization’, West European Politics, 43:6, 1871–10.
Hetherington, Marc J. (2008). ‘Turned Off or Turned On? How Polarization
Affects Political Engagement’, in Pietro S. Nivola and David W. Brady (eds.),
Red and Blue Nation?: Consequences and Correction of America’s Polarized
Politics. Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1–54.
Hobolt, Sara B., and Julian M. Hoerner (2020). ‘The Mobilising Effect of Political
Choice’, European Journal of Political Research, 59:2, 229–47.
Hobolt, Sara B., Thomas J. Leeper, and James Tilley (2021). ‘Divided by the
Vote: Affective Polarization in the Wake of the Brexit Referendum’, British
Journal of Political Science, 51:4, 1476–93.
 West European Politics 649

Hooghe, Liesbet, and Gary Marks (2018). ‘Cleavage Theory Meets Europe’s Crises:
Lipset, Rokkan, and the Transnational Cleavage’, Journal of European Public
Policy, 25:1, 109–35.
Hooghe, Marc, and Anna Kern (2017). ‘The Tipping Point between Stability and
Decline: Trends in Voter Turnout, 1950–1980–2012’, European Political Science,
16:4, 535–52.
Houle, Christian, and Paul. D. Kenny (2018). ‘The Political and Economic
Consequences of Populist Rule in Latin America’, Government and Opposition,
53:2, 256–87.
Huber, Robert A., and Saskia P. Ruth (2017). ‘Mind the Gap! Populism,
Participation and Representation in Europe’, Swiss Political Science Review,
23:4, 462–84.
Hunger, Sophia, Swen Hutter, and Eylem Kanol (2023). ‘The mobilisation po-
tential of anti-containment protests in Germany’, West European Politics, 1–29.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2166728
Hutter, Swen (2014). Protesting Culture and Economics in Western Europe: New
Cleavages in Left and Right Politics. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Hutter, Swen, Edgar Grande, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds. (2016). Politicising Europe:
Integration and Mass Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hutter, Swen, and Hanspeter Kriesi (2013). ‘Movements of the Left, Movements
of the Right Reconsidered’, in Jacquelien Van Stekelenburg, Conny Roggeband,
and Bert Klandermans (eds.), The Future of Social Movement Research:
Dynamics, Mechanisms, and Processes. Mineapolis: Minnesota Scholarship
Online, 281–98.
Hutter, Swen, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds. (2019). European Party Politics in Times
of Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Iyengar, Shanto, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra, and Sean
J. Westwood (2019). ‘The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization
in the United States’, Annual Review of Political Science, 22:1, 129–46.
Iyengar, Shanto, Gaurav Sood, and Yphtach Lelkes (2012). ‘Affect, Not Ideology: A
Social Identity Perspective on Polarization’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 76:3, 405–31.
Iyengar, Shanto, and Sean J. Westwood (2015). ‘Fear and Loathing across Party
Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization’, American Journal of Political
Science, 59:3, 690–707.
Jolly, Seth, et al. (2022). ‘Chapel Hill Expert Survey Trend File, 1999–2019’,
Electoral Studies, 75, 102420.
Kriesi, Hanspeter (2008). ‘Political Mobilisation, Political Participation and the
Power of the Vote’, West European Politics, 31:1-2, 147–68.
Kriesi, Hanspeter, Edgar Grande, Martin Dolezal, Marc Helbling, Dominic
Höglinger, Swen Hutter, and Bruno Wüest (2012). Political Conflict in Western
Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kriesi, Hanspeter, Edgar Grande, Romain Lachat, Martin Dolezal, Simon
Bornschier, and Timotheos Frey (2008). West European Politics in the Age of
Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lachat, Romain (2011). ‘Electoral Competitiveness and Issue Voting’, Political
Behavior, 33:4, 645–63.
Leininger, Arndt (2015). ‘Direct Democracy in Europe: Potentials and Pitfalls’,
Global Policy, 6:S1, 17–27.
Leininger, Arndt, and Maurits J. Meijers (2021). ‘Do Populist Parties Increase
Voter Turnout? Evidence from Over 40 Years of Electoral History in 31
European Democracies’, Political Studies, 69:3, 665–85.
650 E. BORBÁTH ET AL.

Lijphart, Arend (2002). ‘The Evolution of Consociational Theory and

Consociational Practices, 1965–2000’, Acta Politica Special Issue, 37:1–2,
11–22.
Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Stein Rokkan (1967). Party Systems and Voter
Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Free Press.
Lupu, Noam (2016). Party Brands in Crisis: Partisanship, Brand Dilution, and
the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Mair, Peter (2013). Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London:
Verso Books.
Mason, Liliana (2015). ‘"I Disrespectfully Agree”: The Differential Effects of
Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue Polarization’, American Journal of Political
Science, 59:1, 128–45.
McAdam, Doug, and Karina Kloos (2014). Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and
Social Movements in Post-War America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McCoy, Jennifer, Tahmina Rahman, and Murat Somer (2018). ‘Polarization and
the Global Crisis of Democracy: Common Patterns, Dynamics, and Pernicious
Consequences for Democratic Polities’, American Behavioral Scientist, 62:1,
16–42.
Moral, Mert (2017). ‘The Bipolar Voter: On the Effects of Actual and Perceived
Party Polarization on Voter Turnout in European Multiparty Democracies’,
Political Behavior, 39:4, 935–65.
Nemčok, Miroslav, Constantin Manuel Bosancianu, Olga Leshchenko, and Alena
Kluknavská (2022). ‘Softening the Corrective Effect of Populism: How Populist
Parties Increase Political Interest, Not Turnout, among Individuals’, West
European Politics, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2089963
Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart (2019). Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit,
and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oser, Jennifer (2017). ‘Assessing How Participators Combine Acts in Their
“Political Tool Kits”: A Person-Centered Measurement Approach for Analyzing
Citizen Participation’, Social Indicators Research, 133:1, 235–58.
Pierce, Douglas R., and Richard R. Lau (2019). ‘Polarization and Correct Voting
in U.S. Presidential Elections’, Electoral Studies, 60, 102048.
Reiljan, Andres (2020). ‘"Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines” (also) in Europe:
Affective Polarisation in European Party Systems’, European Journal of Political
Research, 59:2, 376–96.
Roberts, Kenneth M. (2022). ‘Populism and Polarization in Comparative
Perspective: Constitutive, Spatial and Institutional Dimensions’, Government
and Opposition, 57:4, 680–702.
Rokkan, Stein (2000). Staat, Nation und Demokratie in Europa: Die Theorie Stein
Rokkans aus seinen gesammelten Werken rekonstruiert und eingeleitet von Peter
Flora. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Sartori, Giovanni (1976). Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Singer, Matthew M. (2016). ‘Informal Sector Work and Evaluations of the
Incumbent: The Electoral Effect of Vulnerability on Economic Voting’, Latin
American Politics and Society, 58:2, 49–73.
Spittler, Marcus (2018). ‘Are Right-Wing Populist Parties a Threat to Democracy?’,
in Wolfgang Merkel and Sascha Kneip (eds.), Democracy and Crisis: Challenges
in Turbulent Times. Basel: Springer International Publishing, 97–121.
 West European Politics 651

Steiner, Nils. D., and Christian W. Martin (2012). ‘Economic Integration, Party
Polarisation and Electoral Turnout’, West European Politics, 35:2, 238–65.
Tarrow, Sidney (2021). Movements and Parties. Critical Connections in American
Political Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Theocharis, Yannis, Shelley Boulianne, Karolina Koc-Michalska, and Bruce Bimber
(2022). ‘Platform Affordances and Political Participation: How Social Media
Reshape Political Engagement’, West European Politics, 1–24. https://doi.org/1
0.1080/01402382.2022.2087410
Traber, Denise, Lukas F. Stoetzer, and Tanja Burri (2022). ‘Group-Based Public
Opinion Polarisation in Multi-Party Systems’, West European Politics, 1–26.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2110376
Van der Brug, Wouter, Gianni D’Amato, Didier Ruedin, and Joost Berhout (2015).
The Politicisation of Migration. London: Routledge.
Wagner, Markus (2021). ‘Affective Polarization in Multiparty Systems’, Electoral
Studies, 69, 102199.
Walgrave, Stefaan, and Rens Vliegenthart (2019). ‘Protest and Agenda-Setting’,
in Frank R. Baumgartner, Christian Breunig, and Emiliano Grossman (eds.),
Comparative Policy Agendas: Theory, Tools, Data. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 260–70.
Walter, Stefanie (2021). ‘The Backlash Against Globalization’, Annual Review of
Political Science, 24:1, 421–42.
Wang, Tianjiao, and Fei Shen (2018). ‘Perceived Party Polarization, News
Attentiveness, and Political Participation: A Mediated Moderation Model’, Asian
Journal of Communication, 28:6, 620–37.
Wessels, Bernhard, and Hermann Schmitt (2008). ‘Meaningful Choices, Political
Supply, and Institutional Effectiveness’, Electoral Studies, 27:1, 19–30.
Wilford, Allan M. (2017). ‘Polarization, Number of Parties, and Voter Turnout:
Explaining Turnout in 26 OECD Countries’, Social Science Quarterly, 98:5,
1391–405.
Zollinger, Delia (2022). ‘Cleavage Identities in Voters’ Own Words: Harnessing
Open-Ended Survey Response’, American Journal of Political Science, 1–48.